23 January, 2012
In the most comprehensive survey ever done about V/Line more than 11,000 people across regional Victoria have given their reasons for using public transport.
Minister for Public Transport Terry Mulder said passengers were surveyed about their reasons for travel to help V/Line and the government with future transport planning.
"We already knew the busiest times of travel for V/Line are generally during the morning and afternoon peak periods for work," he said.
"However we wanted to know more about what the other reasons were for people to use public transport. Some of the results were surprising and certainly not consistent across the state."
Based on the survey results, during 2010-11 Geelong customers:
- Made 320,582 return trips to Melbourne to visit friends and family (12%) of all reasons for travel with V/Line. This was second only to work where 1.5 million trips were made (or 59%);
- Despite the success of the Geelong Football Club in recent years sport (including cricket and other codes) accounted for just 2% of all trips made, or 57,298);
- Leisure activities (including shopping, concerts and music festivals) rated highly with 244,036 trips (9%).
V/Line Chief Executive Officer Rob Barnett said planning for where future patronage growth was likely to occur would become critical in the future.
"No two parts of the state are the same and people are travelling for different reasons. What was interesting was the number of Melburnians using V/Line to travel for high quality cultural events and attractions in regional Victoria.
"This is an untapped market we are going to target to help lift regional tourism and country Victoria."
In other results the survey revealed:
- Work is the biggest reason Melburnians use V/Line to travel to Geelong (38%, or 278,547 trips) followed by;
- Visiting family and friends (37% or 269,598 trips) and;
- Education (7%, with the Deakin University Campus of Geelong helping to draw 51,447 people on the train from Melbourne to Geelong).
Mr Barnett said towns and cities with regional university campuses all benefited from strong travel from Melburnians for study.